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Goodness me I'm pleased to hear it! A 15% improvement in performance for a given barrel with a drop in velocity.
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Now traditionally, Fiocchis are supposed to be good cartridges (fourtenners swear by them), though I've never found that to be the case, so alarming variations in pellet count aren't new to me, sadly. I once counted a batch of their 3" .410 load with a 10% variation in charge either way!
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I'd say something else, but I think the results probably speak for themselves which means the only thing left is to thank you for doing the comparison which has illustrated beautifully the advantages of large shot and low velocities. I'm making progress on writing up your results and I'll send you a link when it's done.

Freedom is having the right to offend and be offended; politeness is temporarily eschewing that right in respect of others; maturity is understanding the compromise and applying it.

What now?
I'm bored tonight
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heres a theory Adam.
the 12 bore sub sonic "garden gun load"
Tiny charge/much wadding/small amount of shot?
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Hmm how little powder/shot to be affective @ 10-15 yards on vermin?
how much powder to ensure the wads leave the barrel?
How quiet would it be through a moderator?
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won't be cost effective but it'll keep me occupied

What now?
I'm bored tonight
.
heres a theory Adam.
the 12 bore sub sonic "garden gun load"
Tiny charge/much wadding/small amount of shot?
.
Hmm how little powder/shot to be affective @ 10-15 yards on vermin?
how much powder to ensure the wads leave the barrel?
How quiet would it be through a moderator?
.
won't be cost effective but it'll keep me occupied

It's an interesting question and one I haven't much thought about. I may have mentioned I own a garden gun in the past, so for me it's a little redundant, but interesting all the same.
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My initial thought is that you'd be risking a lot for not very much. Here's my thinking:
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The smaller the charge weight goes, the faster the powder you need to keep the pressure up to scratch. Too little pressure and you just won't get the shot column moving - velocity falls off fast as powder charges drop and you're probably already close to the minimum with the Red Dot, would be my gut feeling. The reason "normal" powders work in smaller-gauge guns is because the smaller chambers keep the pressures under smaller charges high enough with a given powder.
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Couple that with the fact that a case full of fibre wad / cork / card and a handful of tiny pellets is quite likely to result in the wad being more effective at killing quarry than the shot (certainly my garden gun has struggled to kill anything much at all - not helped by the fact that the front sight is at a 30° rotation around the barrel, making proper aiming impossible) and you do have to ask what the point is.
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Aside: considering that question, I've forgotten the wording of the law about section 1 vs section 2 shotgun ammunition and I'm wondering if one could propel the statutory minimum five pellets of, say, #12 shot, along with a wad made of lead? Would it actually be illegal? I don't think the wad material is specified anywhere though there may be a limit on projectile size. Going to have to go and look that one up.
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Returning to subject, probably one way of doing it is to cut the cases down and use the power of the primer. You could stick a nitro card and a cork wad under a few grams of shot in a chopped 1½" case (say) under a RTO and card and see if a hot primer would give you any velocity. Maybe a tiny quantity of fast powder to give it a shove. I think someone did this commercially at one point (and it's not far off how 9mm rimfire shot cartridges work) but I don't think they ever caught on.
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The trouble with anything like that will be the same as with the 9mm - there's no depth of wad to ensure it stays true to the barrel, so you can find that the wad twists in the barrel and what comes out is a complete mess and hits somewhere other than you were aiming. The Fiocchi loads have nothing more than a 1mm plasticized card, for example.
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The final point is that without enough resistance to the expansion of the powder, the gas will still be burning (slowly) after the wad has left the barrel. The result will be a lot more noise and possibly a huge muzzle flash (think Baikal "Record" cartridges - if you've ever seen a video on YouTube you'll know what I mean).
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Ironically, your best bet at producing a garden gun type cartridge in the 12 gauge is probably to find the slowest powder you can (probably into "fast rifle" rather than "slow shotgun" territory) and stuff as many #9 shot (or smaller) as you can into the case to get the speed right down - not dissimilar to what you've just done, in fact. Think Super-Magnum loadings pushing < 1000fps. The small shot will become rapidly ineffective (if not exactly "safe") and you'd be able to shoot them in small spaces. The downside is that nothing worth shooting at requires a pattern with 1000 pellets in - unless you're amenable to killing and eating bluebottles.
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I'd leave garden loadings to the smaller bores myself. Needless to say that most of the above would be bloody dangerous and I'm in no way recommending that you should attempt any such experiments...
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PS - The last time I fired a gun in anyone's garden, it was a 12 gauge, using subsonic commercial ammunition!

Due to having to make a cocking lever for the webley(no longer available part)
Webleys "lifetime warranty is written on toilet paper"
I took it to try it out.
Same choke thread as the "hatstand" so I put the moderator on it.
Using the 32g home loads it cocked/cycled and ejected without fault with my newly fashioned part.
on the way back to the car "Mr corvid" happend to get a bit close.
The home loads certainly work.
1st shot and it was dead in the air.
Followed it coming down (if they flutter i'll give a second shot before they hit the floor)
Not needed in this case.